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Locus Map - help desk Topic Idea Locus Map (Android)

Category Locus Map (Android)

Comments 6

Subscribers 2

Votes 1

Copy point URL to clipboard: Counterintuitive and circumstantial path to this function

Johannes Müller shared this idea ago

Gathering feedback

If I want to "quick share" a point in order to copy its Google Maps URL to the clipboard, I find it counterintuitive and slightly circumstantial having to do the following steps:

I add my thoughts in brackets to make it clearer ;)

Click on the "Share" symbol on the menü icon bar at the bottom of the point details screen. (Ok)
On the context menü that appears, containing only one single item ("Share"), click on "Share" (Again!).
Choose "Text message" (Huh? I want to copy a Google Maps URL into the clipboard!)
Choose "Quick Sharing: Google Maps" (Hm...will the Google Maps app open instantly when choosing this? That's not what I want!)
Choose "Copy to clipboard". (Phew!)

Suggestion: Move the "Quick share" option away from the "Text message" screen and add it as a second menü item to the context menu of the "Share" button at the bottom of the point details screen.

Please consider: The formatting of the Google Maps URL has nothing to do with the formatting that can be entered in the text field on the "Text message" screen. So it seems to be misplaced there anyway.

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Replies (1)

Menion ●

Good day Johannes,

thank you for useful feedback/idea. I'll try to give here few comments.

ok
under this button are also all additional features added by Locus Map add-ons. In your case, you do not have any add-ons and so only "share" sub-button is visible. It make then sense to directly open "Share dialog" ... improved
4. 5. "... you want ... ", yes, but generally this option gives you flexibility to create custom text message that will be shared with other app / people.

I personally do not know how much people wants to "Copy Google Maps url to clipboard", anyway I expect that more used are methods when you directly "send" current map screen center location to Google Maps or other applications then this. Also how often you use this feature?

Generally what exactly is a main problem here for you? Un-logical place where this (Share to Google Maps) is placed or fact that it take you five taps till you do it?

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Johannes Müller ●

Thanks for removing the additional step 2 if there is only one option under "Share".

Generally what exactly is a main problem here for you? Un-logical place
where this (Share to Google Maps) is placed or fact that it take you
five taps till you do it?

I think the main problem for me (personally) is that it takes 5 steps (4 in the future thanks to the mentioned change) to copy that url to the clipboard. I use Locus quite frequently, therefore I can get used to un-logical namings and places ;) But please consider that this "side-aspect" gets even harder because of suboptimal (e.g.) German translation texts (see this posting and please use Google Translate to translate it to English or Czech).

Copying a URL to the clipboard is not "sharing" IMO. Therefore to me it would be best to place this function next to "Share" in the first step, not somewhere under it.

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Johannes Müller ●

Small correction/update of what I just wrote in my latest comment:

To me it would be best to place this function next to "Share" in the second step, not somewhere under it.

I.e. the share symbol in step 1 could stay as it is, but in the context menu that appears when tapping on it, there would be two entries (if no additional plugins are installed):

- Share

- Copy to clipboard (this would make it clearer that Sharing with Google Maps won't start Google Maps instantly, but copy the Google Maps url to the clipboard instead).

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Menion ●

Good day Johannes,

thank you for additional information and suggestions. One more question I have: for what you use this "Share Google Maps url"?

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Johannes Müller ●

I use this function for all "multiple Google Maps URLs for the same text" use cases.

For example:

Editing an article of my personal Wiki (like for the page "Holidays 2018 in Italy" / places to visit). I do this in a browser that is opened in parallel. By the way: I very much welcome the multi window support available since Android 7.0 Nougat, especially on my Pixel C.
Writing a memo for a group of people planning a bicycle/hiking/diving/motorbike/whatever trip to wherever (and sending this memo as an email when finished). By the way: I use the editor of "Total Commander" for this.

By the way...

The optimal format of a Google Maps URL in my opinion is what I call a "minimal Google Maps URLs".

A "minimal Google Maps URLs" is a URL that is minimal in length, i.e. it has stripped off all bloaty, unneeded overhead.

Example:

Instead of a Goole Maps URL like Locus Maps Pro makes it currently:

http://maps.google.com/maps?z=15&mrt=loc&t=p&q=44.121347192655406%2C3.579638622333093

I'd prefer

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=44.121347192655406,3.579638622333093

Or even better, with only six digits after the point for Lat/Lon, because this is the precision Google Maps uses when creating geo coordinates:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=44.121347,3.579638

The latter format in my eyes is perfect! It's short, human readable, and you can copy the last part of it "44.121347,3.579638".

Please see my comment here that coarsly sketches a possible solution for that.

Thanks for asking! :)

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Menion ●

Good day Johannes,

it is quite difficult for me to decide here, if such improvement will be useful for more users or not. For now, I have at least reduced number of decimal numbers ( sorry for this, it's an issue ).

I can imagine that very common use case is to "share coordinates" with friends over email, some chat app, or "sharing" to different application that may for example start navigation etc. But I never thought about need to "copy Google Maps Url to clipboard" because of need to paste it somewhere to own text.

For now, I have not faster solution for you. Needs to think more about it and maybe wait on more similar requests from other active Locus Map users. Thanks for understanding.

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